Archived under: Accuracy, Teaching | Inner game, Stress & anxiety
How to Make Horn Players Less Accurate
Reading the most recent post on accuracy in the Horndog Blog, “Wild Card Critic,” reminded me of several ways teachers and conductors make things worse for horn players.
Conductors. The big cue is really not a good idea. Give a cue like you trust a hornist; make them feel like you believe that they can do it. And you really don’t need to point out chipped notes. Any good horn player has a strong inner critic; they have already processed the fact that they missed and will try not to make the mistake again.
Teachers. Again, good hornists tend to be perfectionists and have a strong inner critic. While a student needs clarity in comments, you don’t need to pile on. Bugging people constantly about accuracy is not an effective teaching method. But there are many other things to address that will improve accuracy in the short and long term. Focus on those.
The best result always comes when the player just trusts themselves and lets it happen, as described in the classic book The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey. If you are not familiar with this book, read it. I consider it to be a required text for my students. Many, many keys to effective horn playing and teaching are presented in this volume (which I personally prefer to the related publication, The Inner Game of Music).
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